Chapter 16 — Maybe Because I’m Invincible? No Attacks Work On Me

Mei Hanamiya was a Saint even before she left Earth. After being killed by a cat shooting beams of light from its eyes, she'd been made into a Saint and was then brought over to this new world.

It had happened a few days before the class trip, while she was on her way to school. Walking alone, she'd heard what sounded like a baby crying. Since she was very fond of felines, she immediately recognized the sound as that of cats fighting. Checking her watch, she saw she had plenty of time before her first class, so she stepped off the road leading to school to have a look.

Passing through an alley between houses, she ended up in a wide-open space. There she found two cats facing off against each other, one white and one black, both beautiful and well-groomed. She decided to stay hidden and observe.

The fight seemed to be more playful than anything else, so once a winner was decided she figured that would be the end of it. It didn't seem like anything particularly brutal would happen, and if things did get bad, she could always step in and stop them.

The cats finally finished threatening each other, and the white one jumped forward. In answer, the black cat opened its mouth, spitting fire.

"What the —?!"

The white cat changed its trajectory mid-air to dodge the oncoming fireball. As its feet struck the ground, a spear shot out towards its opponent. Side-stepping the attack, a white mist began to pour from the black cat's mouth. As their surroundings turned to ice, the area around the white cat began to glow, protecting it from the cold.

Mei was shocked. She had never expected her decision to watch a cat fight would lead to this. The end came quickly. The white cat's eyes glowed brightly as it fired beams of light at the black cat, who created a sort of mirror in front of itself. The mirror reflected the beams, which bounced back and struck Mei dead on.

◇ ◇ ◇

Mei awoke in a blank white space. Two cats were sitting in front of her.

"Sorry. You died," the white cat meowed.

Mei wasn't terribly surprised by the fact that the cats could talk. They could spit fire and shoot beams from their eyes, after all, so hearing them speak was hardly a big deal.

"Um, could you take me to another world, then?" she asked.

"What? No, we were just going to revive you here," the black cat answered, speaking without the same meowing sound its companion used.

"Oh boy, looks like we killed a real weirdo," the white cat remarked.

"But isn't this, like, the normal development for an 'other world' story?"

"Well, what do we do now?" asked the black cat. "Maybe we should have just brought her back without explaining anything."

"We may be gods, but don't you think we owe her an explanation after what we did?"

"Gods?!" Mei interjected. "So, in other words, I'm going to get a whole bunch of cheat powers, right?!"

The cats shared a look. Clearly, they had no idea how to deal with this strange girl.

"Uhh, first of all, please calm down and listen," the white cat began. "The fact is, we got so caught up in our fight that we weren't paying attention to our surroundings. That's our fault, so we're apologizing. We're going to bring you back to life now, so please forgive us. The best we can do is make you a bit more lucky."

"Aww! You mean I won't get any super powers? Like being able to use every kind of magic, or having infinite magic or something?"

"It isn't normal to be able to use magic."

"But you were using it just a minute ago!"

"Gods can do that. An ordinary human couldn't."

"No, no, no! This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance! Being resurrected is too boring on its own!" Mei whined, rolling on the ground and throwing a tantrum like a toddler.

"Hmm, what do we do now?" the white cat murmured.

"Since this was all our fault...is there any other world you could send her to?"

"I guess but...it's similar to this one, being based on scientific development. There isn't much in the way of magic there."

"I see...oh, it looks like someone is trying to open up a hole. Why don't we use that?"

After whispering between themselves for a while, the cats came to a conclusion.

"Mei Hanamiya, if you migrate to another world, you won't be able to come back here. Are you all right with that?"

"Yes! No problem at all! I have no regrets about leaving this world behind!"

"Then allow me to explain. First, we'll revive you normally, so try not to throw another fit. In a few days, someone will open a hole into another world, then you'll be sent through."

"A hole?"

"I'm sure this is news to you, but there are a large number of worlds out there, all arranged in layers. By opening a hole, you can fall down into other worlds. Someone is creating a hole like that right now, so we're going to use it for you."

"So, someone is trying to summon a person from another world?"

"Exactly. It looks like a big hole, too. They probably plan on summoning a whole crowd."

"Ohh! So I'm getting wrapped up in a group summoning, then!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, but sure, something like that. We can control where the hole opens, so we'll make sure that you get pulled through with the others."

"What about my cheats? Or super powers?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but a normal human can't use magic. However, we can do something where, by going through us, you can work a sort of counterfeit magic. In short, you'll be our priestess, and in response to your requests, we'll lend you our powers."

"Umm, could we call it, like, a 'Saint' or something? Priestess sounds a bit too Japanese, don't you think?"

"You can call it whatever you want."

"Hurray!"

◇ ◇ ◇

And so Mei Hanamiya became a Saint, and was transported to another world without further incident. While she did later receive the Gift along with everyone else, the gods used their powers to modify its contents. In short, it only looked like she was under the control of the Sages, but she didn't actually face any of the limitations the other candidates did. She was free.

Given her position, Mei had no reason to be afraid and couldn't be forced to do anything. The only reason she had accompanied the rest of her class during their efforts to accomplish great feats as Sage candidates was that it had seemed like fun. If anything ever happened, she could simply use the power of the gods, so she had comfortably gone along with the flow. That's why, even after being dragged into a fight to the death, she'd made no effort to flee and had stayed within the fortress made by the Carpenter.

After everyone else ran away, she returned to her room, flopping onto her bed.

"Mei, what are you going to do?" The image of a white cat floating in an empty space appeared in her mind. "I don't think there's any point in joining in on the killing. You're probably better off ignoring the Sage and going your own way. You just want to enjoy your new life in this world, don't you?"

"Hmm. That doesn't sound right. I think I should join in for events like this." Mei did want to experience what this other world had to offer. She didn't want to throw off the balance of things in the process; she merely wanted to enjoy herself while following its rules and her own common sense.

"Are you all right with killing your friends?"

"Isn't that an interesting option in its own way? Everyone thinks they're the strongest, even though they got their powers from the Sage. Watching them become helpless in the face of a real god sounds fun, don't you think?" Until now, she'd been happily taking part in the "travel with the group" plan. That plan evolving into a battle royale was equally interesting to her.

"I don't know if you should talk like that, considering you're using our powers."

"I should probably leave Haruto alive, though..." They could "win" if they killed Sion instead, so it might be best to pivot into that at some point.

"Well, do whatever you like. Who cares who dies in this world?"

As the god's voice started to fade, Mei rolled over on the bed. The next thing she knew, another voice was speaking to her.

"I'm surprised. You just decided to take a nap while in my territory?"

"Oh, good morning, Arima." Hearing him call out to her, Mei opened her eyes. It seemed she had fallen asleep. Looking around, she didn't see anyone, but the Carpenter could make his voice heard anywhere inside his buildings. "Why did you wake me up? Shouldn't you have killed me in my sleep?"

"It felt a little awkward doing it that way. But I've made up my mind now. I'm going to kill whoever I can."

"Oh, really? Good luck, then."

Her bed suddenly disappeared, and she dropped to the floor with a small yelp. It didn't hurt, but the sudden change had taken her by surprise. A second later, her vision went dark, confusing her for a moment.

"Oh, you've boxed me in." By creating blocks, the Carpenter could fashion almost any type of structure. He had used that skill to build up walls closely around her. "So, now what?"

A strong blow struck the top of her head.

◇ ◇ ◇

Osamu Arima's strategy was simple. After trapping his enemies in a closed-off area like a chimney stack, he'd drop a heavy block onto them. He couldn't create blocks in a place that someone was occupying, but he could conjure them high up in the air above. If a victim had particularly strong defenses, they might be able to survive the initial blow, but he had an inexhaustible supply of blocks at his disposal. If someone didn't die the first time, he could keep going for as long as it took. Eventually, the weight would be too much, and they'd be crushed.

On top of that, he could make the space airtight, so they'd eventually suffocate if nothing else. For enemies caught inside his territory, the strategy should have been more than enough. But Osamu was surprised by Mei's sudden appearance in front of him.

"How...?" He couldn't understand how she had escaped his perfect trap, or how she was now standing right beside him.

"I used my Search and then Teleport skills. They're not good for long distances, though. Oh, Abukawa is here too?"

Masahiro Abukawa was the class's Transporter. "A Saint can do more than just erase monsters?" His eyes went wide with shock.

"Yep. Sorry, I lied."

"Take that!"

Something fell from the ceiling. Molten lava spilled down like a scorching waterfall. As the bright red liquid poured over her, she casually looked up.

"Oh, I see, you put a door on the ceiling. And I guess the other side is in a volcano somewhere. That's quite the combo."

A Transporter could connect doors to different locations. Doors created by a Carpenter were more than sturdy enough to survive a submersion in magma, so the two boys must have been working together.

"H-How are you okay?!"

"Maybe because I'm invincible? No attacks work on me." Osamu and Masahiro's faces twisted in fear at her response. "Yeah, that's it. That's what I wanted to see. That look of despair when someone who's so sure of their own power encounters a person stronger than they are." She nodded, satisfied. "Now then, I guess it's my turn. Saint Punch!"

Stepping up beside Masahiro, she threw a weak punch with no effort at all behind it. It wasn't hard for Masahiro to dodge the blow. Osamu could see the whole thing — such a flimsy, effortless attack should be easy for anyone to avoid. Yet her fist struck Masahiro's face dead center.

The spot where her fist had landed began to glow. As if unraveling, Masahiro rapidly came apart, and within moments he was completely gone.

"What...what was that?!" Osamu managed to squeeze out. He couldn't believe what was happening in front of him.

"Well, my attacks have a perfect accuracy attribute. And Saint Punch always erases the person it hits."

"But in that case, you should be able to beat the Sage. We shouldn't have had to fight each other like this!"

"Maybe, but what would come after killing her? Who would think of fun things for us to do? Honestly, being free to do anything gets boring; I'd like at least some sort of direction."

"We could all work together to come up with something..."

"That would definitely be boring. So, Saint Beam!"

She pointed a finger at Osamu. Unable to defend himself, he was obliterated by the ensuing flash of light.

◇ ◇ ◇

Mei stepped out of the fortress that Osamu had built. Despite the Carpenter's death, the structure itself remained standing.

"I guess I hit the quota, so I can probably relax for the next hour, unless..."

Wiping everyone out at once would be dull, but it all came down to how her classmates acted. Mei checked the list of participants in her system window. Out of the sixteen names listed, four had already died in spite of the competition just beginning. The Death God Seiichi Fukai, the Reader Yukimasa Aihara, the Transporter Masahiro Abukawa, and the Carpenter Osamu Arima were all grayed out. At this rate, the whole thing would be decided in the first hour.

As she was wondering what to do next, a new message appeared. Daimon Hanakawa has been entered into the Sage Candidate Selection Battle.

Checking the member list again, Hanakawa's name had indeed been added. It seemed that he had finally rejoined the group.

"Well, this is the perfect chance. I guess I'll go kill him."

She had always thought Hanakawa was gross. So, if the option was available, she would enjoy killing him with her own hands. But she would need to hurry or someone else might beat her to it. It took only a brief use of her Search skill to find him. He was inside the wall, looking like he was about to step out.

Mei teleported in front of the door. As she waited, Hanakawa emerged in front of her, just as she'd predicted. For some reason, he was carrying an unconscious man, and Yogiri Takatou was standing beside them.

"Whoa! If it isn't Mei! Judging by that outfit, you're a Saint, aren't you? My, what a blessing on the eyes!" He'd been caught off guard by her sudden appearance. Although she had fully expected it, the way he spoke to her made her feel nauseous, as usual.

"They're all wearing clothes based on their classes," Yogiri explained, sounding bored of it all.

"Ahh! In that case, Sora's outfit would be one that encourages us to bow down and pray, right?!"

"She wears a pop idol outfit while fighting."

"Ohhhh! Er, this isn't the time to get excited, is it? At this rate, all of my goddesses will be struck down by Master Takatou's venomous fangs!"

"Do you think that badly of me? I don't plan on doing anything to them unless they attack me first." Yogiri turned to Mei. "So, did you come here to kill us?"

Their entirely unbothered attitude was so tedious. Mei wanted to see their faces twist in despair like the other two.

"I mean, it is a fight to the death. There's nothing I can do about that."

She figured she would need to show off her powers in order to earn the despair she was looking for. She didn't have anything against Yogiri, but she decided to start with him. She really wanted to see Hanakawa pathetically begging for his life. Unfortunately, he was probably too stupid to comprehend the situation if she just erased someone outright, so she decided to step up and punch Yogiri like she'd done to Abukawa.

"Saint Punch!" Running forward, she threw a fist at him. Since she had no experience at all in close-quarters combat, it was truly a haphazard attack, but no matter how little effort she put into it, her attacks always landed. And since anyone she struck would die, it didn't matter how much momentum she had.

Yogiri grabbed her wrist. She almost shook her head at his useless resistance before pain exploded through her body. Unable to breathe, she dropped to her knees, hanging her head. It was a pain that an ordinary girl like her would never have experienced before, more painful than she would have believed possible.

"What?! Is that the Eight Extremities Fist?!"

"Dannoura called it the Dannoura Elbow. I've been learning self-defense from her."

Completely baffled, Mei slowly raised her head. She could only tell that she had taken an elbow to the solar plexus by listening to their conversation.

"H-How...?" With the power of the gods behind her, she shouldn't even have been able to feel pain, let alone take serious damage.

"Are you not going to kill her?"

"Well, it wasn't like she was trying to kill me directly."

Mei had used the one power she currently had available to her: Prayer, the power of a Saint, allowing her every prayer to be answered by the gods. It was essentially the power to communicate with deities. The image of the blank space appeared in the back of her mind, where her own god resided. As always, the white cat was there, but its appearance shocked her. It was lying flat on the ground, unmoving.

"God! What's wrong?! What happened to my invincibility?!" she cried out in her head. "This is a violation of our contract!" Despite her desperate shouting, somewhere deep inside she understood that the white cat would never answer her again. "Hey! What am I supposed to do now?! What am I supposed to do if I lose my powers in a place like this?!"

She was in the depths of the Underworld, in the middle of a fight to the death. It was plain what would become of her if she lost her blessings now.

"What's that...what's going on?!" The black cat appeared, that other god who had fought the white cat when she first met them.

"I don't know what's happening!" she wailed in response. "I'll take anything, just please, do something!"

"I understand. I will lend you my strength." In an instant, the pain in her stomach vanished as the god's power flooded through her, healing her injuries in an instant. She looked up at Yogiri.

"No more taking it easy! You can all just disappear!"

She no longer cared about making Hanakawa feel despair. She was far more concerned with getting back at Yogiri for the unbearable pain he'd caused her. All it would take was a flash of divine light, enough to erase everything in her sight. She would unleash it in every direction.

Still on her knees, she didn't waste any time picking a target, interested only in annihilating everything around her. But, just as before, nothing happened.

Both of the cats in the blank space in her mind were now lying motionless. Like the white cat, the black one had fallen over, its eyes rolled back into its head.

"It's really easy to deal with people like you, where the source of the power and the user are totally different," Yogiri remarked calmly.

"What? What...what did you do?" Her voice was hoarse with fear, her words dripping with desperation. She finally realized that the things happening in her head were because of Yogiri.

Mei didn't know what to do, or if there even was something she could do. The brutal fact that she was now powerless was clear, and the reason for it was just as obvious. The anxiety and fear she felt was as if she had been stripped naked. Without her powers, she was merely an ordinary high school student. Being deep underground, locked in a fight to the death with her super-powered classmates, it wasn't hard to imagine what her fate would be.

She knew she should beg for her life. She should ask these two for protection, beg that they take her with them. But nothing was more terrifying than Yogiri. She had thought the power of her gods was absolute, but this boy had slaughtered them without lifting a finger. She couldn't bear to be near a monster like that.

"Ohhh? You aren't going to kill her? I would have thought a man as merciless as you would have finished her in an instant." Unsurprisingly, Hanakawa was trying to stir things up while Mei stood there, trembling with fear.

"It's not like I want to go around killing people. I only do it when leaving them alive means they'll kill me."

"So, why not just kill their abilities? Everyone would be happier that way."

"It was pretty easy to do this time, so I gave it a shot. Normally, powers like that are indistinguishable from their users, so being precise enough to kill only their abilities isn't that straightforward."

"Well, be that as it may, she is now powerless, is she not? Would you mind if I took her?"

Mei recoiled at Hanakawa's disgusting smile. It wasn't hard to imagine what he might do if he was able to take her away. For a powerless, weak girl like she was now, she wouldn't even be able to fight back. She had to run. That was her instinctive response. Yogiri was terrifying, and she'd had more than enough of Hanakawa's perverse leering.

There was, of course, no point in running away given her current situation. On the contrary, running would seal her fate, but she couldn't suppress the instinct to flee. Rising to her feet, she turned around and sprinted off. Luckily, her injuries had been fully healed, so she was in perfect condition.

She ran with everything she had. She needed to get somewhere those two couldn't find her. How had things ended up this way? Mei had just wanted to enjoy an adventure in another world. She'd wanted that plain and simple fantasy life, like she had read about growing up. But at some point, it had all gone horribly wrong. Having lost her powers, she ran as far as her lungs would let her, sobbing all the while.

"This is...this is wrong! Something is really not right! Right?! This isn't possible!" She threw all of her resentment at the feet of her gods, but the two cats who should have answered her pleas remained dead. "Why...why me...?"

Mei didn't run for long. Reaching her limit quickly, she tripped over herself and fell. She couldn't move. Without her gods, she was limited to the physical capacity of an average high school girl.

How far had she run? Looking around, she realized she was deep in the forest, where the moonlight didn't even reach. Fear bubbled up inside her again. She had made a mistake. If she had been thinking clearly, she would have realized that long before.

The sound of laughter came from nearby. Something was close. Laughing voices rang out all around her. She couldn't see the sources, but she could tell that something was approaching.

In that last moment, Mei remembered she was in the depths of the Underworld — the heart of a breeding place for monsters.

◇ ◇ ◇

"Hanakawa, she ran away because you said something gross, didn't she?"

"Is that my fault?!"

"It's completely your fault." But Yogiri didn't have time to chase her down and keep her safe. His priority was to find Tomochika. For some reason his phone wasn't getting through, but he had gotten a rough meeting point from Mokomoko during their previous conversation.

He decided to start his search in the area around the gate.